For Absent Friends
by Nineveh7
Summary: Sarah receives an unexpected visitor. [Eighth Doctor]


**Title:** For Absent Friends  
**Fandom:** Doctor Who  
**Genre:** angst  
**Rating:** PG  
**Warnings:** angst, referenced character death (sort of)  
**Summary:** Sarah receives an unexpected visitor long after she'd left the Doctor.  
**Notes:** The combination of reading transcripts/finding images and wavs from the Fourth Doctor's last episode ("Logopolis") and overdosing myself on screen caps of the Eighth Doctor somehow churned up the plotbunny for this. Doctor Who belongs to the BBC, not me. Though I'd adopt Four and Eight if given the chance.  
**Theme:** _Beautiful Goodbye_ by Amanda Marshall

"Just a minute, Harry!" Sarah called out. She marked her place in the novel she'd been reading and set it down on the coffee table as she stood to answer the door. She thought it odd that Harry was nearly two hours early, but shrugged it off as she opened her front door.

"Harry, you're ear--" Sarah cut herself off once she got a good look at the man standing on her doorstep. "Oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else."

"Quite all right," the man offered, a faded smile playing across his features. "I, uh, I thought perhaps..."

Sarah watched him fumble for words, taking in his appearance. He had a familiar air about him, but she couldn't place it; blue eyes, curled honey-brown hair, long frock jacket...and in his hands... Sarah inhaled sharply, an involuntary reflex she hadn't meant to let slip.

The blue-eyed man dropped his gaze to his hands, offering what he held out to the journalist.

"I thought," he began, "perhaps you might have wanted to keep this?"

She took the multi-coloured scarf and held it close to her, willing the tears that were building up to go away. The scarf still had the scent of the Tardis--and of the Doctor--on it; a mix of futuristic mechanics and honey, something she'd become accustomed to when she travelled with the Doctor.

"I found it in a cupboard on board the Tardis," the young Doctor explained. "I thought of you, Sarah. I've never forgotten you, actually. And I thought you might want it."

"So you're...?"

He nodded.

"How many regenerations away?"

The Doctor shifted and looked away. "This is my eighth life." He faced Sarah once more, blue eyes pleading with her to understand, to not hate him. "I wish I could have come back once more as the Doctor you grew to know. Either of them."

Sarah shrugged with a clipped laugh, biting back her tears. "I understand. Saving the universe and all that, eh?"

The Doctor could see that he was making his former companion upset. "Sarah, I can leave...if you want. You don't have to keep the scarf. I just thought..."

"No, no, it's all right, Doctor," Sarah cut in. She smiled ruefully, sighing. "It's more that he...you seemed so invincible. No matter how many times you got hurt, you'd always get right back up again and shrug it off." She pulled the scarf closer to her and the Doctor knew that she'd never let it go now. He was fine with that. He knew Sarah would appreciate the scarf more than any of his other companions.

"You're expecting Harry, aren't you?" The Doctor knew that the change of subject was random, but he didn't want to interfere in Sarah's life any more than he already had.

"Oh, he shouldn't be here for another few hours," she explained quickly. "But if you have to leave, that's fine."

"I should leave," he said, voice quiet as he averted his gaze once more to the ground. Sarah seemed to accept this and the Doctor turned his back on her.

"Doctor, wait!" she cried suddenly. He turned halfway only to have Sarah nearly leap at him, burying her head into his chest, the scarf pressed between them.

The Doctor's initial shock faded into pity and he held Sarah close. He hadn't meant to cause her so much pain. He let Sarah cry herself out, just content to hold her and comfort her. To reassure her that she had someone to lean on if she needed it. After all, she'd made sure he was all right countless times when he'd been injured or fallen ill.

"Are you going to be okay?" the Doctor asked once Sarah had stopped shaking. Sniffling, she looked up into his kind face that was so different from the Doctor she knew, and yet so similar.

"I'll be fine," she said, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"Don't worry about it." He gave her an affectionate squeeze.

Sarah pulled away from the Doctor after a few minutes. "Will you come back to visit sometime?"

The Doctor smiled widely. "I've got all the time in the universe."

"I'll hold you to that, Doctor," she said with a smile.


End file.
